


Walk Like Men

by tkp (lettered)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-11
Updated: 2006-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/tkp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Connor meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Like Men

**Author's Note:**

> uses episodes "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "Angel", and a reference to Twelfth Night.

In this alley there's three vamps, a shadow figure facing off the three vamps, a hairline fracture in a light bulb responsible for the shadows, an oil-stained door in the wall below the bulb, a metal pipe spanning between the concrete walls, and Buffy swinging down from the pipe, launching into the shadow figure and the three vamps.

Buffy's expecting the shadow figure might need a hand, or two, and possibly a foot. But the shadow figure, after a feint that goes too wide, disposes of two of the vampires very quickly, and Buffy only stakes one. After that there is nothing for Buffy to do but get knocked down by the shadow figure, because again to her surprise, it moves very fast, like the flip of a book back to the beginning, only faster.

"Why're you following me?"

Buffy twists. "So not a vamp, here. See, don't bite?" The boy--he is a boy--stands up, and Buffy looks him down, frowning. "You're really strong. I thought you were a Slayer. Shouldn't you be taller or more muscley and all that?"

"Can I help you?"

"Depends. You're the Destroyer, aren't you?"

He tilts his head, looking her over curiously. "Sometimes I hunt. Like you."

Buffy crosses her arms over her chest. The shadows make her look older; the lines by her eyes are every alley in which she's ever fought. "I kill."

"But you won't kill me."

"Not sure that's an option. You could be a demon from some kind of hell dimension. Or one that spits slime. I'm not turning my back on you. I get so tired of slime, you know? Have to be ready. "

He smiles, fresh-faced. Looking around, he finds his stake and shoves it in a deep pocket of his baggy pants--all the thing now. When you're young you can always just shove things down. "I'm ready," he explains. "Club soda."

"Huh?"

"Club soda. Great for slime stains. I'm Connor. Want to come get coffee with me?"

"For lack of a better _huh?_, I'm going with a what-is-this? Coffee and kill break? What, you kill a vamp and we're friends now?"

"No. Don't want a friend. Just coffee. Come on." He takes her hand and she finds herself following.

"Hey. I didn't say I was--"

There was something going on in California (again), and Buffy'd heard from a skeevy kumquat-or-something demon, who ran a LaserQuest, that there was a Destroyer, a name which didn't exactly sound like the San Francisco treat. So Buffy'd asked the kumquat where the Destroyer was, holding her breath, fearing an answer that rhymed with Hell-A (again), but instead the skeevy guy said, Stanford. Which meant the Destroyer was brainy, or possibly ate brains; either way it looked like Buffy was going back to college.

But walking beside the Destroyer now, Buffy thinks he does not look as if he will eat her brains. In fact, shadowyfigureConnorboy does not even look as though he wants to try to eat her brains, if only for just a nibble. He actually seems very intent on eating the shortbread cookies that he's told her he likes to dip in his coffee, down at Happy Donuts, which is where they are walking.

She doesn't know whether he's brainy either, but he knows things that make her wonder how he knows them. For instance, he's just said, _You're a Slayer, right? What's your name?_ And she's answered, _Buffy_. Then she wonders, _How did you know?_ He explains, _You're very . . . agile? I like that._ Buffy wonders now if that's a come on, but she doesn't wonder that part aloud. As previously mentioned he seems very intent on the coffee, and she didn't say she was coming, but for some reason she is. "What are you?" she wonders, aloud again, because this part she's not getting over.

Connor hitches a shoulder. "I'm just a guy."

"You're not just a guy. Guys don't stake vampires. It's a girl thing."

He shoves a hand in his pocket, the pocket with the stake. "Those vamps, Sebastian and Cesario, have been terrorizing the other students, what with the killing and cross-dressing." He looks down at her. "There's been a lot of gender confusion. See how my first punch was a little wide?"

"How? You shouldn't have even gotten a chance to land one. I've had a lot of super-powered help before. I've never had it be from just some random Joe Schmoe. What are you? Another government experiment?"

Connor looks away. "It was fun though. I like how you tapped in that stake. Like pitching a tent." He's breathing harder. Buffy thinks he sounds angry, or maybe hurt? It's hard to tell. His face is cinched tight, like a draw-string bag with scorpions inside. "I like the sounds they make when they die."

"And now we're going for coffee," Buffy prods. "Blasé, much?"

"Why not? I've done it before. Staked vampires, tortured 'em, drowned 'em. Let's not forget destroying gods." His voice stings. Buffy decides he is both, hurt and angry, but trying hard for that blasé. "I used to pretty much make things ugly for everyone I met, and it was justified, in my heart."

Buffy stiffens up. "But not any more?" she guesses.

"I killed . . . someone. Evil, I guess. Beautiful to me, though. So Angel killed me."

Buffy stops. They are near Happy Donuts; she can hear coffee bar sounds, clatter of voices, cups, static of milk steamers. When she says it, it's like she always says it, a little high, a little disbelieving, a little question that life is really doing this to her. "Angel?"

"Sure. My father. Vampire. He came up with the perfect . . . cure for me. He gave me a new life."

"What, he couldn't just put you in time-out and take away your toys?" Buffy has Connor up against the brick wall, her forearm across his neck. Her voice is grainy, grinding between the cords of her throat, which are standing out, taut and angry, like the way sand stands in ridges, when the wind is very hard, and the land is very dry. The Destroyer looks down at her, still eyes a reflection of the sky. Buffy has not cried over Angel in years. She does not plan on beginning now.

"When Angel got the spell done, everyone got new memories," Connor says patiently. "I don't know if you ever knew about me, but Willow did. She wouldn't now. I'm not even his son any more. That's all gone. You might find it hard because you and Angel had some sort of--thing. But I'd think you'd have an idea what it's like, trying to live two lives. For Angel, for me." He looked down at her forearm, his breath puffing into the hairs there. "I've never told anyone about it before today."

"So you decided to start with me?" Buffy says skeptically, pressing her arm in harder. She can feel his Adam's apple.

"'Cause I thought you'd get it. You should let go now."

"You're not going anywhere until I get--"

"I'm not going anywhere, Buffy. Now let the fuck go."

Despite the words there's no scorpions in that voice, nothing small or fierce or ugly. There's just something like reprieve, like the laying down of a weapon, the exposure of some vulnerable part. Buffy feels like rain, but she holds it in, making her voice grip tight. "Why should I?"

"I have this whole . . . past, things I've done, demon parents, but it's not who I am. I'm a man. I don't want to kill you, tonight, ever. I just want to have coffee with you."

Buffy lets go. He opens the door for her to the coffee shop and looks proud that he's remembered the courtesy. He tells her she should get the caramel macchiato and orders the shortbread cookies for her. They talk and Buffy asks and Connor tells, but sometimes it's the other way around. At the end of the evening, when Buffy has said Angel's name too many times to keep a tear from slipping, Connor suggests, _go ahead. Go ahead and hate me._ And she looks at him, and asks, _Is it really this easy?_ She doesn't mean hating him. Maybe she means forgiveness, or maybe she means wanting to have coffee with a boy when neither of them wants to kill the other. It's hard to tell, but Connor says, _Yes. It really is._


End file.
